How to improve your workplace culture

(Image credit: (Chris Haston/NBCU Photo Bank © NBC Universal, Inc.))

By The Week Staff

last updated 10 January 2015

When a bunch of people get together, everything changes. Different rules apply.

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Heskett finds that as much as half of the difference in operating profit between organizations can be attributed to effective cultures. Why? "We know, for example, that engaged managers and employees are much more likely to remain in an organization, leading directly to fewer hires from outside the organization," Heskett writes in the book. "This, in turn, results in lower wage costs for talent; lower recruiting, hiring, and training costs; and higher productivity (fewer lost sales and higher sales per employee). Higher employee continuity leads to better customer relationships that contribute to greater customer loyalty, lower marketing costs, and enhanced sales."

If these paradigms of how to work together, and of what things should be given priority over other things, are used successfully over and over again, ultimately employees won't stop and ask each other how they should work together. They will just assume that the way they have been doing it is the way of doing it. The advantage of this is that it effectively causes an organization to become self-managing. Managers don't need to be omnipresent to enforce the rules. People instinctively get on with what needs to be done.

If you don't articulate a culture — or articulate one but don't enforce it — then a culture is still going to emerge. However, it is going to be based on the processes and priorities that have been repeated within the organization and have worked. You can tell the health of a company's culture by asking, "When faced with a choice on how to do something, did employees make the decision that the culture 'wanted' them to make? And was the feedback they received consistent with that?"

These executives have hired and promoted people who have values consistent with those that are core in their cultures...if a subordinate clearly violated a core cultural value (such as failing to encourage leadership), even if he or she performed well by certain quantifiable measures, these executives were often willing to sanction that person severely… They were usually quick to spot a proposed compensation system or performance appraisal process that would not reflect the core philosophy of the firm.

Kids won't have to stop and think about what Mom or Dad wants them to do — they'll just go about it because their family culture has dictated, "This is the way our family behaves." …Make no mistake: a culture happens, whether you want it to or not. The only question is how hard you are going to try to influence it. Forming a culture is not an instant loop; it's not something you can decide on, communicate, and then expect it to suddenly work on its own. You need to be sure that when you ask your children to do something, or tell your spouse you're going to do something, you hold to that and follow through.

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